


death and all his friends

by Thealmostrhetoricalquestion



Series: Death and Dreams [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Dead Gansey, Dirty Scrabble, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Living Together, Multi, Necromancy, POV Ronan, Post-Canon, Ronan Swears, deniallllll, they have a cat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 11:19:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6077424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thealmostrhetoricalquestion/pseuds/Thealmostrhetoricalquestion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam scoffs, and then there’s a clink of rattling glass as he re-arranges his vials, muttering under his breath about <em>obnoxious assholes</em> and <em>twenty-three, almost a full vial now</em> and <em>Lynch, get the phone</em>. Ronan doesn’t get the phone, because one perk of running your own business and being rich enough to not need it is that you always have other people around specifically to do the things you don’t want to do, like answering the phone. </p>
<p>“And replacing all the ingredients every time you burn through them,” Adam says drily later on, when Ronan imparts this particular bit of insight over a plate of sizzling burgers. “And cleaning the main shop, and talking to customers, and apologising to customers about you,  and every other damn thing you don’t want to do. It’s not all answering phones and splendour, you know.”</p>
<p> <em>Then why do you do it?</em><br/> <br/>(Ronan deals in death and dreams, and Adam deals with Ronan.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	death and all his friends

**Author's Note:**

> Ronan and Adam live in a little white picket-fence house and dabble in Necromancy on the weekends. Ha. No, but really, that's basically what this is. Just two guys, living their lives, tryna get Gansey back. This is me in denial about the inevitable beautiful horribleness that will occur in The Raven King. 
> 
> The bits in italics are Flashbacks, and there is some swearing, because Ronan exists.

Ronan deals in death and dreams. Mostly the latter, if he’s honest, but there’s always room for death in his line of work, mostly because the people that come looking for dreams and dream-things are the ones close to death; some are desperate for it, for themselves or others, and some have touched it already, felt its cold hands on their skin. Some are desperate to escape it. 

Ronan understands those people the best. For all he walks the line between breathing and dying, death scares him. Death isn’t a dream, a fluid landscape that can be moulded into whatever Ronan’s mind aches for – death is solid and unwavering, inevitable. No matter how quickly his tyres spin or how much poison he pours down his throat, Ronan never truly wants it to end. If he did, he would have ended it by now. 

The shop, small and indiscreet, leans against the large, flat palm of an old oak tree, at the end of a dust-baked dirt-path. The bottle-green windows are vibrant and the grey stone is sun-warmed. The door creaks lightly in its hinges, wide open. Anyone that they need to keep out is not going to be stopped by closed doors, or even locked ones, and the sun is always out in Henrietta, so the door stays open unless the clouds feel rebellious enough to spit on the doormat. Even then, Ronan doesn’t always close the door. He ignores Adam’s quiet, solemn mutterings about getting the floorboards damp and sits on the porch, head tipped back against the pounding rain and the weight of the wind. That weight sticks with him at night, slips into his slumbering state and plays with his dreams. 

Today, though, the sun is out. The air is viscous with a sticky heat that sucks the energy from Ronan’s thin limbs, leaving him dull and tired behind the counter. For someone who deals in dreams, Ronan sleeps very little, _but today_ , he thinks, today he could sleep some more. 

Adam doesn’t let him. 

The door creaks a little more loudly than usual as Adam strides through the door. He kicks his boots off – black, shin-high and coated in dry mud – and settles a crick in his neck. Ronan opens one eye and slides his gaze over Adam’s summer skin, his chapped lips, over the dust that clings to each sandy-brown hair with a viciousness that Adam despises. Henrietta summers always cling to Adam – he looks like he was born out of the land itself, made of clay and sand and dust, smoothed over and sanded down until there’s no possibility of him belonging to any other place. 

“Find anything good?” Ronan asks. The heat makes his voice thick and slow, the vowels especially pronounced, dragged over his tongue. He indicates Adam’s arms, where bundles of burlap scraps protect fragile plants and herbs and all manner of things. 

“Dream anything dirty?” Adam asks, and he doesn’t mean it like that – there’s an inch-thick circle of mud around the entire desk, evidence of Ronan’s brief slip into sleep – but Ronan hears the double-entendre anyway and relishes it. 

“Just sweet Virginia, in all her glory,” Ronan replies, smirking. The front legs of his chair collide sharply with the floorboards; bare and unvarnished. “And these.” 

He unfurls his hand and drops the contents onto the counter, next to the cash register and the army of glass vials that Adam has lined up, ready and waiting, on the pockmarked surface. Blue petals cascade across the counter, velvet-soft and crumpled. They're the same blue as the dust inside the glass bead on his wrist, the one threaded onto a new leather band. It's a turquoise bead, given to him by Adam several months ago - turquoise is supposed to keep danger away. There are other bands on his wrist, but the turquoise one is his favourite. Adam comes closer, barefoot, and peers wistfully at the petals. He touches one with the tip of his finger, almost reverently, and then sweeps them all onto the floor to make way for the burlap scraps. 

“I’ll sweep them up later,” Adam says, carefully unravelling the first scrap to reveal an array of slightly crushed herbs. Ronan squints at them, identifies a few, but gives up eventually and closes his eyes again. 

“No customers,” Ronan tells him. He listens to Adam’s soft, precise voice as the other boy meticulously counts out each herb and places them inside a vial. Some will be studied, others will be crushed, and the rest will be used – much the same way as with most people, in Ronan’s opinion. 

“I figured.” Adam sounds warmer than usual – he always does when Ronan can’t see him. “No word from Mallory?” 

“He called,” Ronan says shortly. “I could barely hear him over his fucking dog barking. Mentioned somethin’ about an old portrait, a possible contact, and then blathered for half an hour about the economic crisis in Britain.” 

There’s a suspicious pause, and then – “You listened to him for half an hour?” 

Ronan smirked. “I left the phone on speaker. I have to sleep some time, Parrish.” 

Adam scoffs, and then there’s a clink of rattling glass as he re-arranges his vials, muttering under his breath about _obnoxious assholes_ and _twenty-three, almost a full vial now_ and _Lynch, get the phone_. Ronan doesn’t get the phone, because one perk of running your own business and being rich enough to not _need_ it is that you always have other people around specifically to do the things you don’t want to do, like answering the phone. 

“And replacing all the ingredients every time you burn through them,” Adam says drily later on, when Ronan imparts this particular bit on insight over a plate of sizzling burgers. “And cleaning the main shop, and talking to customers, and apologising to customers about you and every other damn thing you don’t want to do. It’s not all answering phones and splendour, you know.” 

_Then why do you do it?_

It’s not a question that Ronan will ever ask, partly because he knows the answer, and partly because Ronan has only ever had two ways of dealing with problematic situations; face them head on, usually with a fist for company, or ignore them until they piss off or inevitably blow up in his face. 

It’s been a year, and Adam still hasn’t gone away. Ronan had tried punching him in the beginning, once or twice, and Adam had punched him back and called him a moron and cried, a bit, wiping the tears away fiercely even as more poured down his cheeks. 

_Then why do you do it?_

It’s been a year. 

 

*

 

_Rain and fog and damnable mist cloaks the trees and the floor and the sky. Ronan pummels the nearest tree with his fist, over and over and over, relishing the sting of wood slicing through skin and sinew repeatedly. One of his knuckle-bones bursts beneath the next blow. There’s a bloody circle left on the trunk, and Ronan’s hand is a mess by the time that Adam hauls him around. His nails dig into Ronan’s shoulders painfully, and he doesn’t let up._

_Ronan relishes that too._

_Blue sobs and sobs into Gansey’s jumper, the stupid yellow one that was brighter than the sun, the one that’s now sodden and slick with mud. Her cries are muffled and heartbroken. Ronan wants to hate her, because it was her kiss that did it, but he can’t. Rain batters them all, heavy and unrelenting, and Ronan doesn’t want it to relent; the whole world needs to know, the whole world needs to mourn and grieve and cry._

_“Your hand,” Adam says hoarsely, but Ronan doesn’t want to hear it. Anger rises up in him like bile and he lashes out, fist crashing into Adam’s shoulder. He regrets it immediately, but his insides are churning up and he can’t tell regret from disbelief, pain from denial. When Adam teeters for a moment, Ronan thinks he’s going to fall down, pale and tired and cold, but instead he lunges forward and punches Ronan straight in the jaw, a strange light glittering in his eyes. Ronan hears something click as he staggers back._

_“Stop,” Blue sobs, head still buried in the crook of Gansey’s neck, but Ronan doesn’t hear her. Adam leaps forward again, but Ronan catches him and throws him up against the bloody tree. Cabeswater groans._

_“He’s dead,” Adam is saying, the same words, over and over. “He’s dead, Ronan, he’s dead. Look.”_

_Ronan doesn’t look. He grips Adam’s arms hard enough for them to bruise, watches the tears fall down those dusty cheeks, and then he blows out a breath and staggers back. Adam watches him, pain written all over his sad, devastated face._

_Ronan looks._

_Gansey is dead. His face is pale and frozen and slack, mouth parted. There’s no darkness in him, but no light either, no vibrancy or spark or excitement. His hands are limp and his shoulders are sagging and he looks like he belongs to the forest, like he might sink beneath the dirt and become the dirt._

_“He’s dead,” Adam says again, but this time out of shock and pain. His voice shakes._

_Gansey is dead and the world weeps for him. Ronan collapses beside Gansey’s shoulder, mud seeping through his jeans and soaking him from the knees down. Blue looks up at him, eyes wide and sad, tears still clinging to her lashes._

_“Noah came back,” Ronan says hoarsely. “Noah came back, and fucking Glendower came back. A dead king came back after all those years. I don’t care how long it takes. Gansey can come back too.”_

_He puts his hands on Gansey’s shoulder and shakes him roughly. “Do you hear me? You can come back. Fucking come back, now, now, now.”_

_Gansey’s mouth is a mile wide, frozen on his face forever._

_It hits him, then, exactly what this means. Gansey is never going to speak to them again, never say ‘Lynch’ in that reproachful tone of his, or call Blue ‘Jane’ with an air of utter delight. He’s never going to break out several obnoxiously long words, worm his way into social graces, smile or smirk or look at Ronan over his wiry glasses, never going to scribble in his journal in the early hours of the morning. He won’t drag them all over the mountains looking for mysteries and dead Welsh Kings, because he’s dead, here, on the ground, with everything that made him Gansey gone from his eyes._

_“Come back,” Ronan utters once more, and Blue puts her head back down against Gansey’s jumper, silent. Adam’s shuddery breaths reach him and Ronan gets up them, with leaden legs._

_“I’m the Greywaren,” Ronan mutters, tipping his head back against the rain and the howling wind. “Cabeswater is everywhere. He’s dead, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to stay dead. I’m bringing him back, do you hear me? He’s coming back!”_

_“Send me everyone,” he orders, and then he’s back on his knees in the dirt, staring at the lifeless face of his best friend._

 

*

 

The man is tall, almost inconceivably so, with eyes like funeral flowers and a smile to match, grim and small. Ronan doesn’t like the look of him, but people don’t like the look of Ronan either, and so he doesn’t let it show. Instead, he cradles his hands behind his head and tips back in his chair as the man stamps his boots on the doormat and comes in through the open door. He takes in the shop with a beady stare; the walls are grey stone and lined with many shelves, all painted the same bottle-green as the windows, and every shelf is crammed with objects and knick-knacks and books and jars. 

“The cemetery is about a mile that’a way,” Ronan drawls out, unable to help himself. The man cocks his head to the side and smiles, indulgent, like Ronan is a young, obnoxious boy acting out because he wants to. 

“I’m sure the view’s lovely,” the man says, nodding as he comes further into the shop. “However, I find myself in the market for something a little less dead.”

“Then you’ve come to the wrong place,” Adam says, coming up behind the man. His arms are empty this time, but his hands are obscured by thick, greasy gloves, and his face is streaked with dirt. Nevertheless, he holds out one hand to the man and stares at him blankly until the man complies, grimacing. 

“I’ve come here looking for the Greywaren,” the man says, “I was told I could find him here.” He wipes his hand on his smart black trousers and dismisses Adam with a flick of his eyes. Ronan almost wants to grin – Adam is impossible to dismiss, as evidenced by the way the man keeps glancing towards his peripheral vision, to where Adam stands calmly, arms at his side and expression patient. It’s as if he can’t not look at the boy. 

“Funny name,” Ronan says quietly. “Must be a funny kind of guy. Charming, too, I’d imagine. And devilishly handsome, of course.” 

The man smiles bleakly. “Of course. My name is Hugo. I’ve come a long way to meet him.” 

Adam makes an unimpressed noise. “What makes you think it’s a him? Greywaren could have been a thing, or a place. Why do you assume it’s a person?” 

“Rumours.” The man licks his lips. “Whispers, if you will.”

Adam and Ronan share a quick glance.

Adam clears his throat. “And what language might these whispers have been in?” 

The man looks at him blankly for a moment. “Is that really relevant?” 

“It is if we’re asking,” Ronan says, drumming his fingers against the counter to signify his impatience. The man notices, if the crease in his forehead is anything to go by. 

“Latin,” the man says. “The whispers were in Latin.” 

Another glance, and Ronan nods. _Latin_ is the magic word. _Cabeswater_ , sometimes, if their customer is particular uniformed and can’t tell Latin from their own arse, which has only happened a few times. Sometimes, people happen upon the shop by chance or accident, just looking for directions to an exit that will lead them away from all the green and out into the real world. Other times, people come looking for Ronan, and not all of them are there for honest reasons. Latin has become their word, Ronan and Adam’s, the word that separates the customers from the happy accidents.

Adam strides towards the front door immediately and shuts it with a click, blotting out the sunlight and plunging the room into partial darkness. Ronan grins gleefully – he likes having these conversations in the dark, it’s fun and twisted, no matter how much Adam rolls his eyes over the man’s shoulders. 

“That,” Ronan says pleasantly, “is precisely what I wanted to hear. Now, what do you want to hear?” 

The man looks alarmed. “I was told that I could find the Greywaren here.” 

Ronan spreads his hands out. “I’d shake your hand, but that would involve touching you. No offense, but you look like you just popped up out of a fucking grave.” 

“ _You’re_ the Greywaren?” The man, Hugo, shoots him a disbelieving look and purses his lips. “You’re just a boy.” 

“One of the requirements of the job,” Ronan says, well-used to this reaction. 

“Along with being a dickhead,” Adam adds helpfully. “That’s actually at the top of the list.”

Hugo looks at them, nonplussed, and then his shoulders sag with resignation. Ronan is used to this reaction as well; people don’t necessarily like what they find when they seek Ronan out, but in the end, they don’t care, they give in, because they need Ronan. They need Adam too, although nobody ever knows it. Adam does a lot of the work; Adam is the backbone to Ronan’s body. 

“What do you want to hear?” Ronan asks again. “C’mon, I don’t have all day. Neither do you, by the looks of it.” 

The man shoots him a dark look and then sighs. “Dreams, please. I need to be unseen.”

Adam arches an eyebrow and folds his arms over his chest, still and quiet in the corner. Ronan ignores his silent judgement and nods thoughtfully. 

“How unseen?” 

“Is there even a measurement for that?” Hugo demands, still completely lost. “I need to be able to escape the eyes of something else.” 

“You’re running from something,” Ronan declares. Normally, he doesn’t ask to many questions, preferring to give his clients privacy in the hopes that they’ll return the favour. If that doesn’t work, then he pries and prods and tells them to fuck off, afterwards. This man, though, looks quite sure of himself despite his fear, like he knows he can get what he wants from Ronan. Which means he must have something of value to give to Ronan, in return.

Dreams are the product. Death is the price. 

“Naturally,” Hugo says. “I have been running for a long time, from a monster with an inexplicable fondness for killing with its' eyes. But you have to meet their gaze, and they have to know that they’re looking at you directly before the death takes place.” 

Adam frowns. “A basilisk?” 

Hugo shakes his head heavily. “Something far worse, unnamed and untethered. It has no owner, simply goes after the victims it fancies at the time. But I … invaded its territory, quite by accident, of course. It’s been hunting me for a while now, and I need to escape it.” 

“You don’t want me to kill it?” Ronan asks, just to be sure. “I can dream you up a terror, something to rip its’ eyes out.” 

Just saying the words feels wrong. It’s a joke, of course – Ronan isn’t a bad guy, definitely not the kind that kills for profit, and his stunt with the Grey Man’s employer was a one-off kind of thing, a way to get back at the bastard that killed his Father and keep the rest of them safe. Still, he says the joke every time, because it’s a good way of finding out what kind of person he’s doing business with. People will pay more for a quick, clean death, Ronan has discovered, depending on how black their heart is. 

Hugo looks blankly horrified, and a bit queasy. “No thank you. I heard that you can dream such a thing up for me, and I will pay quite handsomely for whatever you can provide.” 

Ronan narrows his eyes. “You know that we don’t take money.” 

Hugo nods. “Yes, I know. I have information of value, I promise.” 

“Are you sure?” Adam asks. “We’ve heard from Vampires and people claiming to have angel blood. Banshees and all kinds of monsters have stood where you're standing. Sorcerer’s come from all over the world to tell us about different rituals, and none of them have worked. We’ve even had a leprechaun before.” 

“I remember him,” Ronan says, cheered. “He was my favourite.” 

“Only because he drank you under the table,” Adam says drily, turning to Hugo. “In Ronan’s world, anyone that can outdrink him earns his instant respect.” 

Hugo blinks at them. “What on earth did a leprechaun have to offer on the subject of death?” 

“Gold coins that could lead you to the imparted soul of your beloved,” Adam says shortly. “They didn’t work.” 

“Not that it matters,” Ronan adds. “Since we want him alive, not imparted.” 

“Your beloved?” Hugo inquires politely. 

Ronan snorts and glances at Adam, who rolls his eyes. “Sort of. Now, tell us what you know, and Ronan will dream that up for you.” 

Hugo straightens his back and nods, eyes a little unfocused. “There’s a ghost of a Necromancer in Virginia. I have directions to his location, near the old Church. On St Marks day, he walks the earth again, giving advice to those who seek him out. Necromancy is dark work, but there is a ritual that involves only light magic, and he will be able to tell it to you. He’s the only one who’ll be able to tell it to you. It hasn’t been recorded in all of history.” 

Adam glances at Ronan. “St Marks Day is next week.” 

Ronan looks at Hugo, hard, but he can find no trace of a lie in the man’s eye, only fear. “Are you sure?” 

Hugo nods. “I am positive.” 

Ronan ponders this, and then he claps his hands together. “Then I better get dreaming, hadn’t I?” 

 

*

 

_The funeral procession fades away. St Agnes is bare and empty of people._

_“Places like these always feel so much bigger than they are,” Blue muses. There are tears on her pale cheeks, smudging her silver eyeliner, but she doesn’t seem to care. Her black tights are ripped and her dress is an amalgamation of black fabric and deep purple velvet and shining navy blue; she looks like the sky, at night. Her eyes are the stars. Ronan knows that she wore it all for Gansey, to look the way she had when he saw her last._

_Adam is wearing the tie that Gansey bought for him. His suit is a little too big, but he looks solemn and grown up, fingers gripping the back of the pew._

_“Do you think I look morbid enough for a funeral?” Noah had asked, gesturing at his transparent body, outside of the church, and Blue had choked on a laugh._

_“That’s because they’re full of prayers,” Ronan says, echoing his mother. He kicks at the floor and tips his head back. They’re the only ones in the church, so Noah fades slowly into view, only just visible. They sit, all four of them, in quiet contemplation. There’s a big, blown-up picture of Gansey at the front of the church, glossy and fake. Gansey has that jovial smile on his face, the ones that he saves for public occasions and family dinners. Ronan wants to kick the picture over._

_“He shouldn’t look like that,” Adam says quietly. “They should have one of our awful ones, the ones where he’s fallen asleep with his glasses on, on top of his journal.”_

_“Sitting in the Pig,” Ronan says. “That stupid jumper on, trying to figure out which part of the car has fucked up this time.”_

_“I like the one from when we were at Nino’s, and he snorted iced tea everywhere,” Noah adds, voice little more than a rasp. “Coz of you, Blue. You were yelling at some stuck-up boys, I think you called them Prickly-headed tosspots.”_

_“He just exploded,” Adam says fondly, a faint smile on his face as he remembers._

_“Got iced tea in my hair,” Ronan says, mock-annoyed._

_Blue laughs then, and the sound is loud in the Church. The glossy photo seems less affronting somehow, as if it had softened at their voices._

_They leave, eventually, blinking in the bright sunlight._

_“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Noah looks at Blue, upset but resigned. Ronan can barely see him now, all silver and haze. “Adam gave you that favour, and now you’re leaving?”_

_“Calla and Mum are going to drive me to the station next week,” Blue says, nodding slowly. “A spot opened up on that scholarship I wanted, the one in the rainforests. I get to look after monkeys.” Her smile is wan._

_Ronan knows what she’s thinking – they’re all thinking the same thing. If only they had been granted the favour after Gansey had died. Adam had told him all about Blue’s vision of Gansey’s ghost, but Gansey had fallen to his knees in the mud, saying ‘That’s all there is’ long before they had found Glendower. Blue had admitted that it might have been a fluke – “I saw him, after all,” she had said, biting his lip. “I don’t see them, usually. And it’s already happened. It must mean that he’s going to live.”_

_It didn’t mean that._

_“You’ll like it there,” Adam says. “I’m glad I gave you that favour. Don’t forget to keep in touch, though.”_

_They squeeze hands, and Ronan isn’t even jealous anymore. He knows that Blue’s heart was with Gansey, not Adam, in the end. All of their hearts were with Gansey._

_Noah strokes an invisible hand over Blue’s hair and kisses her cheek with cold lips._

_Ronan surprises them all by pulling her into a one-armed hug, squeezing hard. “Bye, Maggot.”_

 

*

 

Nightsmoke drifts out of the open window, permeating the porch with the rich, spicy scent that Ronan’s grown accustomed to. Moonlight bathes him, turning his pale skin silver with its’ gentle touch. Adam’s touch is equally as gentle as he pries the bottle out of Ronan’s slack grip and drains the last of it with a quick flick of his wrist. 

“I feel like one of those old ladies in the South, y’know, with the rocking chair and the pet bird,” Ronan says, tipping back in the chair. It creaks lowly, as does the floor beneath Adam’s bare feet, but the noises are soft and welcome. Ronan had dreamed up the shop, but the porch was built by his own two hands on hot, sticky nights such as this one, and he’s supremely smug that it hasn’t so much as hinted at falling apart. 

“Now that you mention it, I see the resemblance,” Adam says, rolling his eyes. He leans against the wooden railing, faded t-shirt riding up as he yawns widely and stretches. Ronan eyes the slip of skin with greedy interest, and then carefully turns his gaze to the horizon. “Heard from Blue?” 

Ronan slides a hand into his jeans pocket and pulls out a slightly smaller pile of crushed blue petals. He scatters them in the air and watches the wind take them hostage, tossing them over the wild lawn that bleeds into the dirt-path. 

“She’s alright then?” Adam asks, sounding a little relieved. Adam walks a fine line between wistfully aching to hear from Blue and pretending she meant nothing to any of them. Part of him, Ronan thinks, is still sad that she left them, whilst the other part is firmly wishing that he had gone with her. “No problems?” 

Ronan shoots him a look. “How the fuck should I know? She sends me petals, not postcards.” 

“They’re your dreams,” Adam says, rolling his eyes again. “I don’t know how they work. You might get a feeling or a hint, something.” 

“I’ve fucking told you how they work a million times,” Ronan says, swatting a bug irritably with the flat of his palm. “You’ve got to know what you want before you close your eyes.” 

“Is that so?” Adam sucks on his lip, and it’s so distracting that Ronan almost tips the rocking chair too far back. The nightsmoke makes his vision hazy, and his heart thumps a little faster than usual, but other than that he feels in control. Enough to know that he really wants all of this, all of Adam, in every way he can. 

“She’s still in the rainforest,” Ronan blurts out, wanting to distract himself. “I could smell it, in the dream. Humid and disgusting, if you ask me, but she felt happy. As far as I can tell, anyway”

Adam smiles wanly. “Saving the next endangered species from extinction, no doubt. Or tying herself to the nearest tree to ward off anyone with machinery.” 

Ronan snorts. “Probably. Are you sure this shit works?”

The Nightsmoke grows thicker with every passing second, like real mist on a forest floor. His heart is thrumming quickly, pulse dancing in every vein, and he can sense sleep creeping up on him like a sleek predator. 

Adam sighs, and if Ronan were a little more awake, he would have said it was almost fond. “It always works, Ronan. You know that.” 

Ronan’s eyes slip shut. 

 

*

 

_Adam stands beside him, face hard and unyielding. There is no expression there, at least none that is familiar or comforting, so Ronan turns his face to the building instead. It’s a ramshackle little thing that Ronan dreamt up with purpose, gripping the stone walls in his sleep and clinging to them hard. He woke, drenched in perspiration, on the grass, in the shadow of a building that had once been empty space and a few flowers._

_“It hasn’t even got any windows,” Adam says, raising an eyebrow._

_“It’s a work in progress,” Ronan admits. “Wait until you see the garden. Fuck, Parrish, what do you want from me, a Mansion on an Island in the Bahamas? Newsflash: even I’m not rich enough for that.”_

_“Yes you are,” Adam says, not missing a beat. “What is it supposed to be?”_

_“An answer,” Ronan says cryptically, and then he gets tired of his own bullshit and speaks properly, in short, curt sentences. “A shop. Or a house. You can’t live above a church forever – if you grow one more inch then you’re going to put your head through God’s roof and he’s going to be pissed.”_

_Adam looks like he’s about to argue – mouth open and eyes angry, and Ronan knows what to say to get him to agree to this._

_“You can’t live there, and I can’t go home.”_

_Adam closes his mouth. Ronan closes his eyes._

_“Montmouth isn’t Montmouth without Gansey. I won’t go back there. Not until Gansey’s back.”_

_Adam closes his eyes too. “Ronan. We might not be able to do that.”_

_Ronan shrugs, his movements jerky and tight. “We will. I’ll bring him back, you’ll see. We just need to work out how to do it, and to do that, we’ll need people who know about death and magic, and a place to do it all.” He gestures at the house, once, and then lets his fist fall to his side, clenched._

_“That’s why you yelled at Cabeswater,” Adam says slowly, like the pieces are falling into place behind his dusky eyelids. “You want people to come here, from everywhere, people who might be able to help.”_

_“Cabeswater is everywhere,” Ronan says again, remembering that night and the cold air and the mud splattered on a yellow jumper, like tyre marks on a dirt track. “I believe that. I think that means that it’s all over the world, with the other ley lines and whatever other fucking magic shit is out there, ready to fuck up innocent people’s lives. We can’t be the only ones who got the wrong end of it all. Maybe someone else already found a way.”_

_Adam nods slowly and opens his eyes. “Would he want this?”_

_Ronan shrugs. “Does it matter?”_

_“I guess not.” Adam sucks on his lip. “He wouldn’t stop if it was the other way around. He’d be all over the world in a helicopter, looking for a way to bring us back.”_

_“Exactly,” Ronan says triumphantly, punching a fist towards the house. “So, technically we’re just following his lead, again. Hence, we need a place to set up shop. Or house.”_

_Adam turns to look at him, unreadable eyes taking in every inch of Ronan until he feels raw and broken open, heart splayed across a cold surface. “House it is. I’ve always wanted to live the rest of my life in the middle of nowhere, with no windows. What are you going to do?”_

_Ronan smiles viciously. “I’m going to dream him the world. And then I’m going to bring him back, so that he can enjoy it.”_

 

*

 

Ronan follows Adam out into the watery morning sunshine, wearing sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt. He wriggles his bare feet in the grass, feels the dew and dust stick to his toes as he pads quietly after Adam. Adam doesn’t say anything, basket slung over one arm. Ronan’s made several thousand quips concerning Little Red Riding Hood and Adam’s innocence, but they never get old, especially since Adam refuses to swap the basket out for something less picturesque. Baskets are easier to use, apparently. That’s not going to stop Ronan from buying Adam a red hoodie for his birthday, and maybe a stuffed wolf, if he’s feeling particularly generous. 

“You don’t have to come with me, you know,” Adam says over his shoulder. 

Ronan shrugs. “I know.” 

“Let me rephrase that,” Adam says, coming to an abrupt stop. “You never come with me. You’re not usually even up before twelve, and it’s barely eight. What are you up to, and do I need to have emergency services on stand-by?” 

Ronan flicks Adam’s ear, the one that doesn’t work anymore, and sneers. “I’m not going to burn the Orchard to the ground, asshole. It’s _my_ Orchard.” 

Adam snorts. “You might have dreamt it up, Lynch, but I’m the only reason it isn’t all dead by now.”

Ronan doesn’t know why, but he hates being called Lynch. Not just because it rings with a familiar voice, but also because Adam’s grown lax about formality over the past six months, and hearing his name often from the other boy’s mouth, his real name, makes him greedy for the sound and shape of it. 

“Keep telling yourself that, Parrish,” Ronan says, although there’s little bite to his tone. “We all know you like to feel important.”

Adam rolls his eyes and rounds the corner of the shop. Ronan strolls after him at a leisurely pace. 

A rolling stretch of green fields greets them, painted pale in the morning light. The fields are lined with trees, dozens of them, all blossoming with different kinds of fruits. Some are plain and ordinary – juicy crimson apples and plump oranges – but others are a little more remarkable in nature. Even from a distance, Ronan can see the purple spikes and the fluorescent skins, the hexagonal edges and the long, thin shapes. Seeds taken from dreams and planted in soil scooped from a garden of Eden in Ronan’s mind. 

“We can harvest the fruit later this year,” Adam says. “Your mother told me everything we need to know about it all, she even wrote me a list.” 

Ronan raises an eyebrow, although he isn’t terribly surprised. “Did she? I’ll have to remind her not to get too friendly with the staff.”

“I put it on the fridge, if you want to look at it,” Adam says, speaking over Ronan easily. The fridge is already littered with colourful magnets and scraps of paper, notelets and coupons from take-out services. On one notelet, the word _asshole_ takes up most of the space and has been underlined six times. Ronan can’t even remember why, but he’s reluctant to do anything about it. 

“We should still harvest the herbs, though,” Adam is saying, when Ronan looks up to find him fiddling with his basket. There are steps built into the large bank at the back of the shop, leading down into the Orchard, and Ronan takes them two at a time, Adam at his heels. 

“What about the dream-things?” he asks, shoving his hands in his pockets. The leather bands dig into his skin. “Any newer ones crop out?” 

“Four,” Adam says succinctly, and Ronan can tell that he isn’t pleased. “Four new trees, out near the water tank. I can’t tell what they’re growing to grow yet, but some of it glows. You know that we need permission to take up any of the other fields, don’t you?” 

Ronan’s dream-things literally grow on trees. It’s easier than cluttering up the shop with them, although that happens too. Adam harvests them, brings them inside and places them carefully on the shelves in the shop, waiting for the right customer to come along and claim them. 

“I’ll dream up a field, if we need one,” Ronan says dismissively. He's not sure if he can dream up an actual field, but he's pretty sure that he can dream up the deeds to the surrounding ones, the way he did with this one. Adam sighs quietly, but doesn’t argue. They reach the first tree in familiar silence, and Ronan reaches up to pluck an apple from a low-hanging branch. He rolls it in his hands and then tosses it to Adam, who catches it deftly with the hand not tucked around the handle of his basket. This is familiar too, although it usually happens in the afternoons, when the hot sun drags Ronan out of the shop, where things are sticky and dark and hopeless. Now, though, Adam is standing in the shade of the tree, dappled sunlight playing pleasantly over his skin, and his eyes are less tired than they usually are. Adam, in general, is much less tired than he had been, in the days that Ronan doesn’t let himself think about. 

There are lots of things that Ronan doesn’t let himself about, just as there are lots of things that Adam won’t say. Things that Ronan already knows, things like _What if this doesn’t work?_ And _We’re wasting our time_ and _Ronan, he’s gone_. Ronan doesn’t want to hear these things, and Adam doesn’t want to say them, because saying things makes them real, and Adam wants this to work just as badly as the rest of them. 

By ‘the rest of them’, Ronan means him, because Blue is gone and Noah is little more than a cold spot without her. That had been another loss, one that hit hard, although Ronan knows that Noah is still around. He can feel it sometimes, a wash of something frozen and invisible, something sad. 

“We should do the rounds,” Adam says. Then he shoves the basket into Ronan’s arms and takes a bite of the apple, grinning. “Since you’re here, you can make yourself useful. Go on then.” 

Ronan tries to sneer at him, but it’s awkwardly difficult around a mouthful of smiles. 

 

*

 

_Ronan wakes up in bed. It’s not a common occurrence – usually Ronan wakes up on the porch, blanket folded over his legs, neck stiff and aching. Sometimes he wakes up at the counter, and once he woke up at the kitchen table, the remains of his apple pancakes an inch away from his face. Adam knows that sleep is almost impossible for Ronan these days, unless he uses Nightsmoke, so if he catches him sleeping, he doesn’t wake him up. Unless he’s in the throes of a nightmare, which isn’t too often._

_Mostly, when he dreams badly, it’s of Gansey’s silent, still body._

_He’s never dreamt up a Gansey. It wouldn’t be right, it wouldn’t be the real Gansey, and Ronan would know the truth. Once, when he woke up, Adam’s face looming above him, he had dreamed up an entire replica of the cardboard Henrietta that still sits in Montmouth, dusty and trashed. This one was intact, though, and Ronan had moved it to the shop attic, ready for Gansey to come back to._

_In a fit of grief and rage, he had kicked the shit out of it, howling, until that one was also trashed. Adam had watched, silent, from the doorway._

_The light creeps in through his window, drowning him in sunshine. Ronan gets out of bed groggily, dream fading from the edges of his mind. He knows he brought something back – something real and warm. He had been dreaming of Adam (which really is a common occurrence) and then something else had disturbed the dream, something just as alive as the boy in his arms had been._

_He finds his answer on the porch, when he steps outside with a mug of something hot and spicy. Or rather, he finds his answer under the porch, meowing at him loudly. Ronan clambers down the steps and sticks his head under the wooden frame, staring into the dark, grassy space beneath the porch. Two amber eyes blink back._

_“Is that a cat?” Adam comes up behind him, sweat sticking his head to his forehead._

_“I didn’t do it,” Ronan insists, just as the cat prowls out from beneath the wooden. Adam takes one look at its’ silver and purple fur and snorts, derisive._

_“On purpose,” Ronan adds. “I didn’t do it on purpose. You like cats, don’t you? What the fuck do they eat?”_

_“Food,” Adam says shortly, although he crouches down beside Ronan and holds out a hand for the cat to sniff. The cat eyes him critically before apparently deeming him worthy enough to scratch her ears. Ronan watches the soft, pleased expression fall over Adam’s face, and smiles a little smugly. He’s seen that look a handful of times so far, since Adam moved into the second bedroom on the second floor of the shop. Once, when Ronan had dropped a mug and hoped around the kitchen swearing loudly, clutching his foot, and another time, when Ronan had dreamt up a toboggan that ran on pure willpower and had insisted that they race around the Orchard on it, only to end up bursting through the hedge and into a neighbouring field, much to the farmer’s consternation._

_It was possible that Ronan was a little addicted to that content expression._

_He hastily wipes the smug look away when Adam looks up, quizzical._

_“It’s a girl,” he says. “What do you want to call her?”_

_Ronan pulls a face. “I don’t fucking know, Parrish. It’s your cat.”_

_Adam looks at him, nonplussed. “You dreamt her up!”_

_“I can’t stand the bastards,” Ronan says. He starts to stand, but Adam swipes his mug and takes a long gulp, scooping the cat up in his arms._

_“We’re calling her Jane,” he says firmly, and then he strides purposefully into the shop, presumably heading to the kitchen._

_Ronan looks from his empty hand to Adam’s retreating figure, and yells, “She’s not sleeping in the house! You can shove her back under the porch when you’re done. And do not feed her my pie!”_

 

*

 

“You could have gone to College,” Ronan says suddenly. They’re on the porch again, but he hasn’t lit the Nightsmoke yet, so he feels wide-awake and aware of everything: the birds that hoot softly in the trees nearby; the purr of the silver cat beneath the porch, the one that Adam feeds pie when he thinks Ronan isn’t looking; the creak of his rocking chair as he tips it back to the breaking point; and even the cologne that brightens Adam’s collar. 

Adam freezes, one hand in the velvet bag full of Scrabble tiles, and frowns up at Ronan from beneath long, sunlit lashes. The evening is pleasantly cool and the sky is painted a dusky pink, edged with cotton candy and cream. Cicada’s chirp in the undergrowth and dust rolls down the dirt-track, away from them. 

“It’s your turn,” Adam says, lips pursed. “And no more Latin words, they don’t count.” 

Ronan snorts. “Don’t be Latin-ist. And I mean it, y’know. You could have gone to College, gotten all rich and built a mansion far away from here.” 

“No such word as Latin-ist, Lynch,” Adam says lightly. “Maybe we shouldn’t be playing Scrabble, it’s obviously much too complicated for your little brain.” 

Ronan makes a rude gesture and puts down _Screw_ , using the _W_ from Adam’s _Wanker_ and feeling inexplicably smug about it. Adam raises an eyebrow at him and makes a disappointed noise. 

“Tame, Lynch, so very tame,” Adam says, shaking his head sadly. “Are we playing Dirty Scrabble or not?” 

“Screw is a dirty word,” Ronan insists, a little slurred. He doesn’t get drunk properly anymore, but his speech takes a hit every time he finishes a bottle. “I didn’t have enough tiles for what I wanted to put down.”

Adam shakes his head. “I don’t want to know. Your mind is a dangerous place.” 

They play for a few more minutes before Adam starts to talk. 

“I’m still going to go,” Adam says quietly. “I haven’t given up on all of that. I’m going to go and get all the qualifications I need, and I’m going to get out of this place. But it wouldn’t be the same without Gansey here to see it all. College can wait a little while longer, until we get him back.” 

He sounds doubtful, but Ronan knows the doubt isn’t in him, or in their plan. The doubt is for their answers – what if there isn’t a way out of this? It’s possible that nobody has ever done this, never brought someone back from the dead. Maybe nobody’s ever been desperate enough, maybe they never had enough magic in their lives, maybe the magic just doesn’t exist. 

The necromancer had an answer for them, at the old church. He had grinned, all rotten teeth and dark eyes, and he had told them of a Ritual that required a Dreamer and a Magician. The Pheonix Song, it was called. It wouldn’t bring a person back from the dead, no, it would give them a chance at being reborn.

Ronan didn’t know if he believed it, but there was always a chance, no matter how slim, that it might work. So they had set a date. 

“I shouldn’t have asked you,” Ronan says, voice raw no matter how clinical he tries to make the words sound. “I shouldn’t have asked you to stay.” 

Adam tilts his head to the side. His eyes are dark and there’s a shadow along his jaw. “No, you shouldn’t have.” 

Ronan sets his chin. “You can go, you know. It’s been a whole year, Parrish. I won’t be pissed. I can manage this on my own.” 

Adam scoffs. “No you can’t. I’d come back to find the place in flames. Besides, we just got another lead, and I intend to see it through. Anyway, that’s not what I meant.” 

Ronan selects a tile from the velvet bag and quirks an eyebrow. 

“You shouldn’t have asked me,” Adam says, sighing. “You shouldn’t have needed to. You should have known that I was staying anyway. I’m not leaving you alone, Lynch. You’d fall apart without someone to keep things going.” 

Ronan wants to fall on him, scatter the tiles and pepper his face in kisses. He wants to wipe the serious look away with whispered words of his own, ones that he’s kept down in the dark, secretive place in his chest for years, fashioned out of something that he can’t name. 

He doesn’t do that. Instead, he smirks and shakes his head and says, “Yeah, who’d feed Jane all of my food if you fucked off, hmm?” 

Adam flips him off, blushing. 

 

*

 

Thick, velvety darkness descends over them. Myriads of stars wink and blink, staring down at the small fire pit near the water tank, at the back of the Orchard. They’ve spent the better part of a week hacking down the trees, the ones that haven’t grown any fruit or dream-things in a while, and slicing the trunks and branches into firewood. More fields stretch out in front of them, empty and muddy. 

Ronan tosses a glowing orb between both hands as Adam throws aside his shovel. The orb turns pink as it touches his palms, then mint green, then blue, and then back to white again. Ronan dreamt it up years ago, and so far, all its’ done is glow intermittently. It’s had its uses, although every now and again it dies out before Ronan can get to somewhere bright. 

“That should be enough,” Adam says, wiping his brow with the back of a dirty hand. There’s dirt under their fingernails and sweat on their skin, but Ronan feels lighter and more awake than he has in months, and he can see the same feeling in Adam’s bright eyes. 

“This might actually work,” Ronan whispers. “We might actually pull this off. Fuck. What if it doesn’t work?” 

The words spill loose before he can bite them back. Adam wipes his forehead again and then rubs his hands on his jeans, loose on his hips. He reaches over and wraps a hand around Ronan’s wrist, crushing his leather bands beneath his coarse palm. The turquoise bead digs into Ronan’s skin, but he ignores it in favour of staring at those tanned fingers. 

“It will work,” Adam says, shrugging. “Cabeswater said so. So did the necromancer. If not, we’ll go back to the drawing board, and we’ll try something else. Simple as, Ronan.” 

It is simple, when Adam puts it like that. But there’s nothing simple about this at all, not at the heart of it all, and Ronan can feel anxiety thrumming through his veins. 

“A Magician and a Dreamer, that’s what the necromancer said we needed,” Adam says, speaking slowly like he’s reading off a piece of paper. His hand shifts a little, but doesn’t relent its grip on Ronan’s wrist. Ronan wants, more than anything, to shake his arm until Adam’s hand slips down to his own. “There’s no bigger Dreamer than the Greywaren, and Cabeswater made me a Magician. This will work, Ronan.” 

Ronan swallows, licks his dry lips, and then takes a step forward, towards the fire pit. Adam’s hand falls away, and Ronan feels oddly alone, isolated, like he’s the only person beneath this vast, starry sky. His feet are bare again, toes digging down past the grass and into the soil. The wind whips around his ankles, and he can hear Adam’s quiet breathing behind him, just a little faster than usual. 

In one swift moment, Ronan throws the glowing orb into the fire pit. It nestles, low in the sticks and bracken and bits of wood, and glows pink. All they have to do is wait until the light turns red, and then Adam will break it open with his hands and his eyes, the bits that still lay claim to Cabeswater. The fire pit is more of a bonfire, smack bang in the middle of two criss-crossing ley lines. 

“We just have to wait,” Ronan says, mouth dry. He feels a rush of cold wind sweep over him. It feels like fingers on his skin, and Ronan grins, all teeth. 

“Noah,” Adam says, voice brightly surprised. Ronan turns to look at him, viciously pleased at the little grin on Adam’s face, the surprised tilt to his mouth. 

“Czerny, if you’re here,” Ronan says loudly, “Look away now.” 

There’s a scoffing sound, faint but there. Adam gazes at him quizzically, but Ronan is too busy pulling Adam in with a hand around the back of his neck, feeling the warmth of him there. His thumb brushes along Adam’s pulse point, and he smiles into the kiss, which is chaste and firm, as Adam’s pulse stutters beneath his touch. Adam doesn’t waste time being surprised; he gets his hands on Ronan’s shoulders and leans up, getting closer and closer and closer. 

“What are you doing?” Adam asks, as Ronan’s lips skate to the corner of Adam’s mouth, pressing sweet kisses against the dimple there, treating it like the target it’s always been. 

“Got a few minutes,” Ronan mutters, kissing along his jaw. His hand moves up to Adam’s hair and tugs gently, exploring. Adam makes a soft, content noise and pulls back. Red light casts his face in shadow. 

“Hang on,” Adam whispers, and then he grabs Ronan’s hand properly this time, and brings it up to kiss each knuckle, including the broken one. There’s a scar there, small but still puckered, even after a year. Adam whispers something, eyes shutting briefly, and the orb cracks like an egg behind them, spilling bright fire all over the twigs and branches. There’s a crackle, and then a roar, and then a wave of heat against the back of Ronan’s neck as the flames sweep up towards the sky. 

There’s an urn resting in the shadows of the nearest tree. The Gansey’s had held a funeral, but three weeks after, Helen had turned up on Ronan’s doorstep, tear tracks still glittering on her cheeks. They were moving, she had said, to somewhere where you couldn’t fly a helicopter freely or traipse across the mountains in ridiculous yellow jumpers, and Gansey wouldn’t have wanted that. He would have stayed behind, in a place where there was magic and life. 

Then she had shoved the urn into Ronan’s bewildered arms and taken off, heels clicking on the dirt-path. She hadn’t looked back once. 

Adam tips his hand towards the urn, and vines creep down from the tree, wrapping themselves around the lapis lazuli and the little flickers of gold writing. The lid slides to the floor, and ashes sweep towards the bonfire, catching in the flames. 

“You could have just picked it up,” Ronan mutters. “Show-off.” 

Now they just have to wait. 

Adam quirks an eyebrow. “You dreamt up a house, and an Orchard, and a cat, all for me, and I’m the show-off?” 

Ronan didn’t dream those things up just for Adam, not entirely, but Adam obviously isn’t as oblivious to Ronan’s intentions as he had hoped. He looks at the sky, and then at the space just behind Adam’s left shoulder, and says, “You knew about all of that?” 

Adam gets a hand on his chin and yanks it down a little roughly. “You hate cats. They make you sneeze. You love The Barns and you could have lived there on your own, but you knew I’d feel like I was intruding. You knew I’d want something to do, something to make this less like charity, so you dreamt up a job for me, a way to earn money. What part of any of this was subtle, exactly? I was just waiting for you to make a real move.” 

Ronan concedes the point with a one-shouldered shrug and another kiss, deeper this time. Maybe it had all been for Adam, after all. 

“It’s not charity,” he says, breathless, when they come back up for air. 

“No?”

“No,” Ronan says firmly. “It’s a life. Together, if you want that. It’ll still be here after college, too, since I know you’re not going to want to stay here for much longer, not after this works. Or there are other places out there. I might be able to dream us up a mansion, if that’s what you want.” 

It’s not charity. It’s Ronan’s heart on a platter, and he’s almost certain that Adam is going to shove it back into his chest, but Adam just shakes his head, and he looks fond. 

“Moron,” he says, smiling. “You know there’s such a thing as online courses, right? What do you think I do when you sleep?” 

Ronan blinks at him. “Really?” 

Adam throws his hands up in the air. “Really. I love you, asshole. Why do you think I’m still here?” 

“Oh.” For once, Ronan doesn’t have any words. Except for, “In that case, I love you too. _Asshole_.”

The fire roars up even higher, and Ronan gently pulls Adam’s hands back down out of the air, lacing their fingers together properly. The turquoise bead digs into both of their wrists, and Ronan can throw it away because they’re not going to need it anymore, but he knows he won’t. Adam gave it to him.

Adam’s given him a lot of things. 

The flames lighten to a familiar, obnoxiously bright yellow colour, and Ronan squeezes Adam’s hand as Gansey spills out of the fire, reborn, smile a mile-wide and alive.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know how it was, please, and feel free to cry with me on tumblr, at Coconutcranberries. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! :)


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